Summer Research Experience: Student Blog

Arriving to Harvard Forest from drought stricken California, I could have never imagined a place with so much water and lush green vegetation; precipitation so thick that the trees "rain" for hours after warm summer showers, rivers hugging every winding country road, and lakes bursting at the seams. New England is a magical place where no one must consider turning their fluffy turf grass yard into a succulent garden or rockscape in response to the west coast drought. Looking out a car window across a sprawling valley, one tries to comprehend how many hundreds of metric tons these trees occupy...Read more >

Biology is a 3D puzzle; an infinitely large logic game with the universe, made up of numerous rings, bars, and strings inexplicably intertwined. A scientist attempts to make sense of these knots, looking for patterns in the pathways. This summer, I have been trying to trace these connections in strings of DNA in hopes of uncovering the story of soil life after decades of experimentally-induced warming. In October of 2011, soil cores were taken from each of the three soil warming experiments at the Harvard Forest and immediately immersed in a bath of ethanol and dry ice. This precious, mad-...Read more >

[The English version of this post is followed by a Spanish version, also written by Mayra.] In a world where both natural and human driven disturbances have caused an array of changes in the landscape, we would expect that land-use and land-cover change could become either an asset or a threat to our environment. Here at the Harvard Forest the landscape simulation crew has joined forces to predict land-use change effects on the ecosystem and its services. These services are benefits obtained from ecosystems that provide people with necessities such as fresh water, food and fuel. Understanding...Read more >